-= words =-

The City lay in ruin. It was not a storm or a plague or a marauding horde going over her walls, though. It was simply that the City was poorly planned, became prosperous quickly, and grew too fast from there….

I get seasick. I don’t mean a little queasy, green around the gills, take-a-Dramamine-and-stare-at-the-horizon-for-a-while seasick. I mean violent, shuddering, unrelenting vomiting, the kind that has people around me seriously considering calling for the Coast Guard, worried that I might barf…

I hate having rattling stuff in my pocket. It’s not usually a problem when I’m wearing jeans. The way they fit and the closeness of the material kind of hold everything in place. But dress pants and their looser cut…

Does it ever happen to you that you become aware of your footprint? I don’t mean carbon. I mean something more like your fundamental presence in the universe. The dent you make in space-time. The space you take up, the…

A couple of weeks ago, I sat here one evening looking at tumblr, and realized I’d lost my voice. Or, more correctly, I was sick ofhearing my own voice. Still am. It’s not quite writer’s block, since I have plenty of…

On September 18, I received an email from my friend and long-time musical collaborator Tony Rogers. The subject was “distant early warning,” probably in reference to an obscure Rush song because that’s how we roll, and it said, in part: On…

Neil deGrasse Tyson famously said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true whether you believe in it or not.” Today, Nate Silver and Sam Wang and others like them could add, “and that’s doubly true for math.” I’m…

In what may be the single most insane (or inspired?) act of my professional career, I resigned. And I don’t have a new job lined up. In the face of 8.5% unemployment, a lot of turmoil in my industry, a spectacular…

I looked upon pure evil today: viciousness, cruelty, and rage, delivered from parent to child. He didn’t hit her, though I have little doubt he would. Truthfully, though, I cannot imagine that to beat the child would do any more…